New Carl J. Shapiro Science Center nearing completion

Complex will house teaching labs, classrooms and research labs

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Jan. 15, 2009

The Brandeis campus has a new front door.

Construction work on the towering, new Carl J. Shapiro Science Center – the first building visitors see as they drive onto campus from South Street – is nearing completion. The family of Carl and Ruth Shapiro made a generous naming gift for the 100,000-square-foot complex, which will be ready for occupancy in February.

“While the striking exterior of the Carl J. Shapiro Science Center continues the physical transformation of the Brandeis campus, we expect what happens inside the building to be far more consequential,” said Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz, PhD ’72. “The Shapiro Center will meet the demands of 21st-century researchers and allow Brandeis scientists across all disciplines to work together to solve the day’s most vexing questions.”

Among the labs that will be housed at the Shapiro Center will be the National Center of Behavioral Genomics, which is dedicated to understanding brain function and behavior. The center seeks to solve the mysteries of degenerative neurological diseases, autism, learning and memory.

The Shapiro Center, the cornerstone of the university’s science complex renewal project, will provide two floors of biology and chemistry teaching labs and classrooms, three floors devoted to research labs, and an atrium and café.

While construction of the Science Center draws to a close, another project that is the result of the generosity of the Shapiro family is continuing. The new, expanded Carl and Ruth Shapiro Admissions Center, made possible by a $14 million gift from the Shapiros, will include a welcome center, a 100-seat presentation room equipped with the latest technology, a waiting area for 100 visitors, and a financial services satellite office.

The Shapiros funded construction of the original admissions center in 1994, but a new building was needed to accommodate surging interest in Brandeis among high school students.